This invention relates to a hair cutting appliance for automatically and evenly cutting hair at a selectable length and for disposing of the cut hairs.
It is desirable to have a hair cutting appliance which will automatically and evenly cut hair to a selectable length, so that hair cuts can be given at home by those unskilled in the barber trade. Barbers may also find such a hair cutting appliance useful, as it may reduce both the time required to give a haircut and also be highly accurate as to length. It is further desirable that the hair cutting appliance remove cut hairs, whereby the haircut does not result in cut hairs being deposited on the clothing of the subject and on the floor surrounding the subject.
There are several prior art devices for cutting hair which have not been entirely successful. The first type of hair cutting apparatus includes a power operated clipper having reciprocating multi-toothed blades mounted in a housing to which suction is applied. The clipper teeth are spaced from the end of the housing to determine hair length. The suction draws the hair into the housing where the clipper is located, with the object being to have the clipper cut the hair. Devices of this type are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,077,122; 3,979,825; 3,654,699; and 1,331,218. The basic problem with these devices is that it is highly difficult to force the hair into the reciprocating multi-toothed clipper, with the result that the hair is unevenly cut. U.S. Pat. No. 1,735,766 discloses a somewhat similar device with the exception that the clipper is manually operated, and U.S. Pat. No. 2,807,086 discloses the use of a power operated clipper with a suction device for removing cut hair, but there is no provision for cutting hair to a uniform length. It has also been proposed to use rotary cutter blades within a suction chamber, wherein the chamber spaces the rotary cutter blades from the head of the subject. Devices of this type are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,900,949 and 1,238,061. However, the rotary cutter blades also do not achieve even cutting of the hair.
A suction tube has also been mounted to a manually operated scissors in order to remove cut hairs in devices according to U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,606,681 and 3,505,732, but these devices do not provide for cutting hair to a uniform length. U.S. Pat. No. 4,000,562 illustrates the use of a suction tube provided with a slot, whereby a manually operated scissors can cut hairs presented to the slot at a uniform length. This is not a simple operation inasmuch as it requires two hands and also does not produce a particularly even cut. A power operated scissors is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,945,298, but the scissors operates at a very high rate which would not be suitable for cutting hair, and is not incorporated into any type of hair cutting apparatus.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a hair cutting appliance which will satisfy the following objects of the invention herein.